The city of King, NC, paid Americans United for the Separation of Church and State $500,000 and agreed to remove the iconic image of a soldier kneeling at a cross-shaped headstone, ending a lawsuit filed in 2012.
The city council voted 3-2 to settle.
“I feel this city has been sabotaged and bullied Read more
Each year since 1993 the President has declared January 16th to be “Religious Freedom Day,” in order to remember the passage of Thomas Jefferson’s 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. President Obama has not yet issued his proclamation this year [Edit: now available] but will likely do so today.
Jefferson’s statute continues to be a strong expression for the value of religious liberty even today. Though the statute has been discussed in many places and in great depth, there are two important points to take from the statute. First, Read more
Update: Dr. Al Mohler makes the same argument as below, saying
We are now witnessing a direct and unavoidable collision between religious liberty with what is rightly defined as erotic liberty — a liberty claimed on the basis of sexual identity and activity. Religious liberty is officially recognized in the Bill of Rights — even in the very first amendment — and the framers of the American order did not claim to have established this right to free religious expression, but to have recognized it as a pre-existent right basic to citizenship.
Erotic liberty is new on the scene, but it is central to the moral project of modernity — a project that asserts erotic liberty, which the framers never imagined, as an even more fundamental liberty than freedom of religion.
FoxNews broke the story of Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran, who was recently fired after he wrote a book on Biblical morality for his men’s group at church — which had a half-page on homosexuality some activists found offensive.
Despite the fact only the expression of his beliefs got him fired, Atlanta council member Alex Wan — who is homosexual — said he
support[ed] Cochran’s termination and said it “sends a strong message to employees about how much we value diversity and how we adhere to a non-discriminatory environment.”
So, a person who was not discriminating against anyone was discriminated against in order to provide a non-discriminatory environment? One wonders if councilman Wan knows what the word “discrimination” really means.
Georgia Equality, a homosexual activist group, also Read more
We think — and the Constitution and Supreme Court caselaw supports us — that the right of the men and women in our armed forces to their personal choice, the right to their personal belief, the right to their religious or non-religious preference, cannot be abrogated by the government, by their superior officers, or by the Pentagon.
That sounds like a statement most could agree with — and those words come from MRFF board member Mike Farrell in their annual end-of-year fundraising letter.
Regrettably, the actions of Farrell’s boss, Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, contradict his noble words. Contrary to Farrell’s gilded semantics, Weinstein has attacked the personal faiths of Christian chaplains and troops — even going so far as to attack Christian chapel services — in what can only be described as an attempt to deny “the men and women in our armed forces” their religious liberties through the force of government.
More tellingly, Weinstein — a Read more
While saying the move was unrelated to Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s complaint a few weeks ago, the US Army “removed all university preferences from [its] assignment postings.”
In other words, the text “must be of Christian faith” will no longer appear next to Army staff assignments to Wheaton College.
This was previously discussed at length. While Weinstein called it a “HUGE MRFF Victory” [emphasis original], it Read more
A few months ago Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel encouraged US troops to vote, noting
For Americans serving in uniform, voting is more than a civic responsibility. It’s about exercising the rights you’ve sworn to defend.
It’s encouraging to see senior leaders call on troops to exercise the rights they’ve promised their very lives to defend. Notably, the right to free exercise of religion is Read more
Below:
Jewish Endorser Backs Punished Christian Chaplain
Yeshiva Pirchei Shoshanim, a Jewish endorsing agent for US military chaplains, has publicly backed US Army Chaplain (Capt) Joseph Lawhorn — a Christian chaplain punished for sharing his personal story of how faith enabled him to weather depression [emphasis added]:
[YPS] believe[s] the Letter of Concern is inappropriate and will have negative consequences on all military chaplains…
YPS supports the right Read more
It didn’t take too long for Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s research assistant, Chris Rodda, to pen a diatribe criticizing the US Air Force Band’s “flash mob” kick-off to the Christmas season. As is her typical style, she wrote an 800 word passive-aggressive narrative without ever really saying why she was writing it, other than a vague objection to “religiosity” on the part of the Air Force.
Near the end, though, she finally cut to the chase:
I’ll bet there are some Islamic extremists out there who are also being quite “inspired” by these viral videos of mobs of uniformed U.S. military personnel belting out lines like “Joy to the world! The Lord is come. Let earth receive her King!,” “Joy to the world! the Savior reigns,” and “This, this is Christ the king!”
Way to go, U.S. Air Force Band!
Ah! So the MRFF thinks that if Islamic extremists will hate America Read more